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Monday, July 11, 2011

Eight little girls, one great craft & a whole lot of Rock & Roll! For my daughter's seventh birthday party she wanted to have a "Craft Party". Even though we are quite crafty at home the prospect of crafting with a house full of girls (hyped on birthday excitement and cake) made me a bit nervous. To tame this idea we narrowed on a theme. She decided on "Rock Stars". Together we chose to make puppets (who would star in their own rock concert) and decorate CD cases (in case the puppet making didn't take up enough time).

For the first bit of the party the guests decorated their puppets (everyone seemed to have a blast doing this and worked quite studiously on their characters). Once they finished painting they moved to another table (where we had markers and crayons) and then decorated their album covers (I cut out pieces of paper and replaced the album art in the jewel cases of the CDs). After pizza and cake the guests put on a very lively and entertaining rock concert.

Here's how the craft took place:
To make the Rock Stars we used a ball knob, flower pot and wood dowel. The guests could also choose an instrument for their doll (we had electric guitars, acoustic guitars, microphones and tambourines) plus a hair accessory (butterfly, flower or star). To give them an idea of the finished product I painted a sample (late at night before the party - please excuse the poor rendition of a guitar!).
Before the guests arrived I hot glued the wood pieces together. I had debated about gluing the dowel to the flower pot as it fit quit snugly but am glad I did as the concert got quite wild (a lot of hair whipping) and I was relieved the heads & bodies were both securely fastened).
We spread a big sheet out over the dining room table, put down newspapers and waxed paper (to squeeze the paint onto and make clean up a breeze) and handed out a brush to each guest. I recommended that they choose their choice of hair first (we had a few packages of odds and ends of doll hair but yarn could work just as well) and then suggested that they try to paint the top of the doll's head the same shade.
As the dolls dried the girls painted their musical instruments and worked on their CD cover art. By the time the dolls were dry our pizza had arrived. While the girls were eating I was able to hot glue the musical instruments, accessories and the hair to each doll.
After cake and present opening the girls broke up into two groups and preformed a rockin' concert for us. We provided the music with the help of a MP3 player (the girls weren't too keen to sing but were quite loud with their giggling) and the Rock Stars simply swayed (or whipped their hair) to the music.
To make the concert stage we found a large box and decorated it with paper. Four 1 1/2" wide slots were cut across the length of it (this worked well since the dolls wouldn't fall through and having lots of slots kept the dolls from banging into each other).
The guests were thrilled with their dolls and even took them to school the next day. Most of all, my daughter was thrilled with her "Crafty 7th Birthday".
In hind site, we should have made a video of the "concert" and burned those onto DVDs which the guests then could have taken home (in their decorated CD case). ...I don't know that we'd ever have been able to be that organized!